French
Polynesia, the Tuamotu
archipelago
We left Nuku
Hiva at noon for the 540 mile trip to Kauehi in the Tuamotus in a brisk trade
wind. We had decided to have a nice gentle sail down, taking 3 days, so put two
reefs in the main. However Snow Leopard had other thoughts. Throughout the first
day we tramped along averaging 10 knots, so that evening we rolled a bit of jib
in to slow down. Oh no, Snow Leopard was having none of it and continued
averaging 10 knots. We were comfortable so let the boat continue through the
moonlit night.
To get into the
lagoons of the Tuamotu islands you must arrive at the entry pass at
approximately slack water, as most have incoming tides of 4 knots and out-going
tides of up to 10 knots. As you can imagine these currents cause large rips,
with breakers and standing waves and we certainly wanted an easy passage into
our first lagoon.
However having
covered 242 in the first 24 hours we were left in a dilemma. We either had to
continue averaging 10 knots all the way or slow down to an average of 4 knots
and have a third night at sea as first anticipated.
We thought we’d
give it a go but it did mean driving the boat hard, with several sail changes,
and what should have been a relaxing passage became rather tense as we ploughed
on and on at speed.
The wind dropped
light for a few hours during the second night and our plans looked unattainable,
but back came the wind, with the addition of some nasty squalls and we finally
arrived off the entrance to the lagoon just before low water. There were still
standing waves, but they were manageable and we butted through into the
lagoon.
Kauehi
My image of
these South Pacific lagoons was somewhat awry. I had always thought of them as
small, gentle anchorages (once through the pass!) surrounded by palm trees, with
a short row ashore to little fishing villages. Somehow the true size of these
atolls had evaded me, even though I had the charts and the pilot books. Kauehi
is a medium sized atoll, but was still 7 miles in diameter. When we reached the
anchorage outside the village of Tearavero, we had motored for over an hour
from the entrance and you couldn’t see the other side. It was more like an
inland sea than a lake!
The anchorage
was about half a mile from the village, and it was shallow with many coral heads
waiting to snag your anchor. Fortunately when we arrived our friends Chris and
Lorraine on
Gryphon 2, were already there and able to advise us on the best place to drop
the hook.
The anchorage at
Kauehi
The High Street, Kauehi City
Kauehi has a
total population of about 200, all in the village of Tearavero. There is an old church, and
town hall, built of coral bricks, one shop and that’s it, but a very neat and
tidy, pretty village, which rather grandly proclaims itself ‘Kauehi
City’!
The people were
very friendly in a quiet way, but after a couple of days started to chat more
and more. One day, as we were going for a walk, the town’s mayor stopped and
asked where we were going. “I’m going to paradise. Do you want to come?” he
asked in French. We both looked at him somewhat non-plussed, until he explained
that he had a pearl farm called Paradise, and
all now made sense. So we hopped into his truck and bounced our way first along
the road, then between the palm trees to the pearl farm. Not much was going on
at the time, just a bit of maintenance, but he explained that he produces a
million and a half black pearls a year, all exported to China and Japan. He also
owned a large chunk of the island where the coconuts are turned into copra and
exported via Tahiti, plus he owned the village shop and the ‘café’ at the newly
constructed airstrip, which receives two flights a week from Papeete, Tahiti.
Bizarrely, bread and eggs are flown in once a week, and then distributed at the
shop, so if you want bread you have to be there on Saturday morning for your
week’s supply.
Kauehi church, built of
coral bricks
Interior
Shell
chandelier
This is Andre. I so
appreciated his fine sense of fashion that I had to have a photo. You’ve seen
the shirts – now the shorts. I really have gone tropo!
Next day,
someone who cannot be named, sidled up to us and said he was going to collect
some tern eggs and would give us some that evening. The extremely furtive way we
were asked, and then the clandestine handover later, suggested that this is
probably a highly illegal undertaking. However we withheld our moral scruples,
partly because of the generosity of giving us the eggs and partly to see what
they were like, and accepted 10 eggs. We invited the crew of another catamaran
over to taste a tern egg omelette, which, I must say was delicious.
Hum! The less said the
better – but delicious
Onshore, the
town were putting on a ‘heiva’, rather like a village fete at home, except
lasting three weeks! A number of stands had been erected around the local
football pitch (coral not grass, so not conducive to sliding tackles), and
beautifully decorated with woven palm leaves. There were catering stands,
selling ice cream and candy floss, or chow mien or steak and chips, stands
selling palm leaf hats and jewellery made of shells, and other stands with
games, such as a dart board, table football and a coconut shy! Every evening
there were sporting competitions. The petanque (boules) was keenly contested as
was the volleyball. All this on an island with only 200 people!
We and the other
visiting yachtsmen were welcomed openly, and given cake and an extraordinary
pink drink which, I think contained grenadine. There was no alcohol!
The sign was put up
especially for us visiting yachties
The Heiva site with
committee all dressed in green
All smiles in Heiva disco
hut!
Never complain about the
quality of a grass pitch
Us yachties at the Heiva.
The devious looking man in the white shirt is the mayor. Say no
more!
Lucy with ‘Madam Mayor’,
the shop owner, on her birthday
This place has aspirations
– watch out New York
We stayed in
Kauehi a week and it was a lovely introduction to the Tuamotus. Things have
obviously changed big time in the last 10 years, especially since the building
of the airstrip. Mobile phones and satellite TV are the norms. The village had
far better street lighting than North Boarhunt
at home, but the people remain friendly in a modest way.
Fakarava
That cannot be
said of the next island we visited, Fakarava. This is the second largest of the
Tuamotus, and the lagoon is 30 miles long and 10 miles wide. That’s a circumference greater than the
Isle of Wight, to put it in perspective. Whilst
the lagoons are huge the islands (motus) surrounding them are perilously
insignificant. Even at Rotavoa village the island is no more than 400 metres
wide and 3 metres high (not including palm trees of course). One wonders and
fears what global warming will do to this oh-so fragile environment. Talking to
Enoha at his delightful lagoon-side restaurant, he had noted a 10 cm increase in
the water level in the last 8 years. What will be here in 50 years? Not a lot
unless the movers and shakers of this world pull their fingers out and actually
do something rather than just talk, talk, talk.
That pass into
the lagoon is wide and easy although the strong tides still cause breakers,
which give the helmsman a good soaking!
This island has
always been visited by many more tourists, by air and boat (they even get small
cruise ships into the lagoon, and the people (about 1000) are very blasé about visitors to their
island.
Main road, Rotavoa,
Fakarava. Note heavy traffic
The anchorage, Rotavoa,
Fakarava. If they all look the same there’s a reason for
that!
The anchorage contained
about 14 yachts, including a number of charter boats, up from Tahiti. Although sheltered from the prevailing wind, the
anchorage was prone to a swell from the south which was beam-on to the yachts
causing them to roll uncomfortably (even us!!!). The weather continued to be
windy with big rain squalls, as it had been since we reached the
Tuamotus.
One of the principle
reasons for coming to Fakarava is for the diving, especially along the two
passes into the lagoon, which teem with fish and lots and lots of sharks! Now,
I’m not a fan of sharks. Everybody around here says they are harmless (well they
would wouldn’t they?) but I’ve never been keen to meet the shark who proves to
be the exception to the rule, especially as we are now talking big sharks like
hammerheads and tiger sharks. However I reckoned that in a group it would cut
down the chances of me being the victim so I was prepared to give it a go.
Unfortunately the bad weather had stirred up the bottom and the visibility was
so poor that diving was off the menu temporarily.
Instead we had the delights
of the World Cup final and a total eclipse of the sun to keep us amused.
Unfortunately they occurred at precisely the same time, which I feel was very
inconsiderate of the World Cup planners in South Africa,
not to take account of the Tuamotu islanders’ situation. Well as you know,
Spain won the world Cup and it was
cloudy throughout most of the eclipse. C’est la
vie!
Given that the weather
showed no sign of improving, (in fact it was forecast to get windier), and given
the rather dull atmosphere in Fakarava, we headed 40 miles north-west to the
island of
Toau.
Toau
We sailed up to Anse Amyot
on the north coast. It looks like a pass into the lagoon, but is in fact a
cul-de-sac, with the entrance cut off from the lagoon by a shallow reef, covered
with fish traps.
These belong to the one
family who live here, headed by the effervescent Valentine and her hard-working,
jack-of all-trades husband Gaston. They have laid a number of moorings for
visiting yachts, which is just as well as there is not a great deal of room to
swing at anchor and the bottom is foul with big coral
heads.
There was only one boat
there when we arrived, ‘Gryfon 2’ again, and it was good to see Chris and
Lorraine
again. We were followed in soon after by another British boat ‘Sara 2’. We had
first met John and Chris on ‘Sara 2’ in the San Blas islands in
Panama, and had bumped into them
several times since. Actually they had to follow us from Fakarava to Toau as we
had all their food! Their fridge had broken down and we have all their
perishable food in our fridge, so if they want to eat they have to follow!
The next day was July
14th, Bastille Day, and a day of great celebration all over
French Polynesia. We had been anticipating
being somewhere here we could enjoy the local celebrations – traditional
dancing, singing etc. – instead we are at a tiny motu on Toau with a current
population of 4 plus 6 visiting British yachtsmen! Still the day started well
when Chris and I went off to catch lobster with Gaston in his wooden pirogue
(complete with 150hp outboard. We went a couple of miles down the reef then
jumped out, swam ashore and started searching under rocks right on the edge of
the reef. Rather, Gaston and his mate searched, Chris tried valiantly and I held
the sack in anticipation. After about an hour we had about a dozen lobsters,
which were to be the centre-piece of out feast to be cooked by Valentine and
Gaston that evening.
We went ashore that evening
for a fabulous meal of poisson cru (raw fish in coconut milk, breaded parrot
fish, chicken pieces and barbequed lobster. Valentine is a wonderful hostess
regaling us with stories about life on a deserted island and of all the boats
that have visited over the years. She has wonderful scrapbooks with
contributions and photos of all the boats going back to
1983.
July 14th feast,
Toau. Lobster caught that morning!
Gaston and Valentine, our
delightful hosts
The scariest story was
about the family’s survival of a cyclone that swept across the island in 1983.
The waves came right over the island. Everything was destroyed. The chickens and
pigs were lost as were all the family’s possessions. They survived by climbing
into a concrete water cistern and staying in they until the storm had abated.
They set to work the very next day to start
rebuilding.
The wind really began to
howl, and we began to worry about the strength of the moorings we were on and
wondering if the line snapped would we have enough time before being swept onto
the reef. Everything held firm in after two days of really windy weather things
started to calm down.
Lucy and I decided to walk
round the motu. Valentines’ three dogs accompanied us. Baloo, a rottweiler-cross
amazed us with his fishing prowess. In the shallow lagoons surrounding the
island he caught 4 parrot fish and a shark! His incisor teeth have been worn
smooth by the skin of all the sharks he has caught. That has to be a first – a
shark-hunting dog!
‘Baloo’ the shark
hunter
Valentine and
Gaston
Their little bit of
paradise. Note the telephone box – it didn’t
work!
After a few more days,
walking, snorkelling (the Picasso fish is extraordinary), and generally lazing,
we decided it was time to leave these strange islands (Billy Connolly on a visit
a few years ago, names the Tuamotus ‘the kingdom of Niki - Naki - Noo – and somehow it is very
appropriate.
So having paid our
farewells to the friendliest of inhabitants, in the remotest corner of the world
we set out for Tahiti, to Papeete and civilisation –
ugh!
